“So I am doomed,” she said. “And you are here to take me.”
“There you are again,” he said, with a shake of his head, “being melodramatic. I’m merely giving you some perspective. That isn’t the sort of deal we’ve made at all.”
“You’re talking in circles again,” she said.
“My darling, I already told you: If all I wanted was a petty little soul, there were dozens I could have snapped up quicker and neater than yours.”
She pulled the blanket closer around her shoulders. “Then what do you want?”
“A warlock.” He stepped closer. “You, in particular, as my warlock.”
She shook her head. “I don’t … I don’t know what you mean.”
He gave her a dark look, as if she were being deliberately obtuse, but she could only shake her head again. Lorcan sighed. “It means you’re bound to me. For the pleasure, I grant you powers. Powers you seemed to dearly want, before.”
“Spells?” she asked. “What … what do I have to do?”
“Nothing. You’ll find it’s much simpler than other sorts of spell-casting. Now,” he said, his eyes gleaming in the firelight, “do you want a taste of what you’ve purchased?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know that I do.” And he wasn’t telling her what she’d purchased those powers with, she couldn’t help but notice. “Why me?”
He shrugged. “Call it a whimsy of my character. I have certain preferences for my warlocks.”
“Warlocks?” she said, emphasizing the plural.
“You aren’t exactly my first,” he said with a chuckle.
Farideh started to ask him who the others were—whether they, too, were caught in the net of their own fears and wants, whether they were afraid of him, whether they were pretty—and stopped herself. She didn’t want to know.
He set his hands on his hips. “Come now,” he said after a moment, “what are you thinking?”
“That you don’t seem dangerous,” she admitted. “Which makes me suspect you are very dangerous.”
“I hope that is not a logic you apply to your everyday life.”
“No,” Farideh said. “Just devils … and the like.”
“I’m only half a devil.”
“That’s enough like a devil.” Her voice hitched, and she pressed a hand to her mouth, willing herself not to cry again. But it was too much and the tears overcame her.
“Oh Hells,” he said, holding out a hand, “come here.”
She didn’t know how he snatched her wrist away from the layers of the blanket, how he pulled her free of it and to her feet, but as soon as she realized he was moving and she should stop him, Lorcan had her tucked against him, her back pressed to his chest, his arms wrapped around her.
“You’re freezing,” he commented. Fortunately he was warmer than the fire.
She stiffened, and kept her eyes resolutely on Mehen’s sleeping form. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Proving you haven’t doomed yourself. Really, I’m a pleasant enough fellow if you give me a chance.”
She was sure in her heart of hearts that Lorcan would say anything if it meant she’d stay bound to him. But that night, far from home and far from any future, she was still seventeen, still a girl, and still desperately lonesome. She stayed where she was.
“Why me?” she said. “You said … ‘the king of the Hells’ own blood.’ Is that why?”
“All tieflings have the blood of Asmodeus,” he said. “Regardless of who first dirtied the well. An effect of the ascension—it’s terribly boring. Don’t worry about it.”
Farideh pursed her lips. “I don’t like people telling me what to think.”
“Fascinating. How do you feel about people telling you what to do?”
He snatched up her hands in his own. Her breath caught—her double concerns twining over each other. She’d heard stories enough of people who lost their souls by not paying close enough attention to canny devils.
But at the same time no one had ever grabbed her hands like that. Lorcan’s hands were strong, and she found herself considering how much larger than hers they were.
If he held tight, she didn’t think she could break away.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
She gave a little shake of her head. She didn’t want to, and yet she did. She wanted to see what he was going to try—it wasn’t as if anyone had tried anything on her—but she wasn’t a fool and she knew he was up to no good.
“Close your eyes. Think about your burn,” he said. “And think about the world.”
“The whole world?”
“Yes. Think about Toril.”
Tempted, Farideh tried, but it was like trying to think about how to walk or how the color yellow looked—Toril was Toril. She opened her eyes.
“I don’t know how—”
“Stop talking,” he said, “and concentrate.”
Farideh closed her eyes again, and instead, thought of the ground. The way it felt to stand solid and to spread her weight between both feet in one of Mehen’s fighting stances. She thought of the cold, dry air and the wind that stirred the snow over the solidness of the mountains. She thought of the sun and Selûne looking down at her, and the color of the moon goddess’s light on the rocks and the snow. The stillness of the cold winter night and the sound of the breath through her nostrils and the heat and pop of the fire.
And the burn—no, she thought, not burn. Brand. Lorcan could call it whatever pleased him, the lines that laced her shoulder were more than a burn. Tieflings didn’t burn easily—she and Havilar had scared Mehen enough times, snatching dropped bits of bread or meat right out of the flames, quick enough that they didn’t feel a thing. Only setting fire to their sleeves now and again.
But this burn, this brand, was no more a part of Toril than Lorcan was. Farideh knew that all the way to her marrow. The way it pulled at her, the way it still ached after hours and hours and Mehen’s ministrations. The brand was something magical, and it tied her to Lorcan.
And something tied him to someplace … else. If she let her thoughts drift along the bindings, she could sense another world beyond Toril.
The Nine Hells.
Farideh swallowed hard and opened her eyes.
“You’ve noticed,” Lorcan said.
She nodded, not wanting him to be a devil, not wanting him to be a monster. Not wanting to have said anything to him in the first place, if she could just wish for things to be true, so that she wouldn’t be standing there, as unsafe as she could be.
Lorcan let go of her hand and traced the lines of the brand peeking through her hastily mended dress. “This mark is what connects you to the powers of the Hells. Well,” he amended, “rather it’s what lets you channel them. Through me. Easier than spellbooks.”
“Does it hurt?”
“You’ll be fine.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “I meant you. Does it hurt you?”
He smiled—such a wicked, wicked smile. “I’ll be fine too. Here’s your first lesson.” Lorcan took her hands up again. “Think about that connection. You were close. You felt the power.”
She still could—it was like a primed pump, waiting for someone to grab hold of the handle and start it flowing. And it seemed to want her to grab hold of it, as if it were aware, as if it wanted to flow through her.
“What will it do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Lorcan said, “unless you take hold of it.”
She opened her eyes. “Is this how you’re going to take my soul?”
He sighed. “Lords. If I promise to leave your soul alone for the time being will you just do what I say?”
Farideh laughed bitterly. “What’s your promise worth?”
“Plenty,” he said, sounding affronted. “I’m not some demon or something. I keep my word.”
“You lied about the circle.”
“I didn’t lie. I wasn’t forthcoming. There’s a difference. And I give you my most s
olemn word that you can keep whatever semblance of a soul you’ve managed, devil-child—unless you want to give it up—if you just do what I say.”
“For now,” Farideh added. “If I do what you say for now.”
He chuckled again. “You are terribly melodramatic. For now.”
Farideh hesitated again, sensing the power lying just out of reach. It seemed, she thought, to be only a part of something larger, a fraction of the Nine Hells, and still it was vast and roiling. She wondered if she managed to open that channel wider, like the breaking of a dam, if it would surge through her and Lorcan and kill them both.
“You know,” Lorcan said, “you are bound to come up against bandits. Or monsters. Or just people who don’t like the look of you. Maybe those neighbors of yours will decide you need more punishment than just banishment. This will help. For all I’m sure your dragonborn has trained you with a sword, you’re not practiced enough with it.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
He rubbed his thumb over her palm in a slow circle. “Calluses. Your hands are far too smooth.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair.
Later, Farideh would think if anyone ever asked her about that night, she would need to invent a story—something where she acted because she was prideful and thought she could handle what she should have known she could not; or because Lorcan was clever and she was grief-stricken and foolish; or because she was forced against her will to grasp the powers of a warlock.
Anything, she would think, is better than the truth—that I reached for the powers of the Hells so I wouldn’t have to think of something to say to the half-devil stirring up my blood in ways I didn’t want to think about anymore.
The power poured into her, like slick, dark water filling a basin, and churned through her, stirring through every vessel, every part of her.
“Say adaestuo,” Lorcan said.
She opened her eyes. “Adaestuo.”
The power seemed to burst into being in the air before her mouth and, channeled by her outstretched hands, streamed across the clearing and exploded against a fir tree with a sickly violet light.
Farideh stared, agape, at the force of it. The wood had splintered and charred where the blast had struck it, and embers of purple light still scintillated at its edges. A single word and she’d blown off a piece of the tree nearly as large as her head.
She might never please Mehen with her sword work, she might never rival Havilar’s skill with her glaive, but this … this was breathtaking.
It was also loud. At the explosion, Havilar sat bolt upright. Mehen did not wake so much as materialize on his feet, falchion in hand. His eyes went straight to the tree, with its ring of strange, purplish embers … and then followed the path of the blast back to Farideh, her hands in Lorcan’s.
She tried to leap away, to put as much space between her and the cambion as she could, but she couldn’t move. Lorcan had folded his arms around her, as if this were nothing, as if no one were watching, as if Mehen weren’t advancing on him with his bare blade.
“You were made for this,” he whispered, and kissed her, just under her cheekbone. He vanished, and Farideh lost her balance and fell to the ground under the astonished stares of her sister and guardian.
THE HIGH ROAD, TWO DAYS SOUTH OF NEVERWINTER
10 KYTHORN, THE YEAR OF THE DARK CIRCLE (1478 DR)
(SIX MONTHS LATER)
THE WAGON LIMPED ALONG THE HIGH ROAD MORE SLOWLY THAN Brin could have walked, but after well over a month, he was tired of walking. To be honest, he was tired of wagons as well, and ships and horses too. He was tired of moving, and the call from the lead wagon that the caravan had reached the city of Neverwinter couldn’t come soon enough.
Brin watched the road behind them, stretching on beyond another four lumbering carts of former refugees returning to rebuild the city that had fallen nearly a quarter century ago. He did not see—as he feared—the cloud of dust on the horizon that half-a-dozen knights on chargers would kick up as they pelted along the dirt road.
This didn’t calm him the way it should have. In fact, the longer he didn’t see any sign of his cousin, Constancia, the more he worried she was just behind the last hill, ready to grab him by the ear and haul him home. He looked up at the clouds hanging in the blue summer sky and wondered if he had made an enormous mistake.
Constancia would say so: It was irresponsible. It was foolish. It was possibly illegal. And why, she would ask, by the lions of Azoun, Neverwinter?
The call had gone out halfway across the continent that the Open Lord of Waterdeep was rebuilding Neverwinter out of its shattered ruins, and all her citizens—and their descendants—were encouraged and invited to return. Among the thousands of people filtering in through the city gates, no one would notice one more boy.
And there was the city’s history—the famed clockworks and fanciful buildings, the artisans whose creations were still prized—that had caught Brin’s attention. And the catastrophic death of the city by earthquake and volcano, that had held it.
But perhaps most of all, it was far enough away that no one would know who he was or what he’d done or what he might have done if things were a little different—
“Is something troubling you?”
Brin looked up at the man sitting beside him, who had also paid the cart’s owner to carry him to Neverwinter.
“No,” Brin lied. “Just thinking.”
The man was a Calishite, perhaps in his forties or fifties, slim and muscular. The threads of gray in the man’s hair might as well have been ornaments and the crinkles in his brown skin, paint for all he wore his age. He smiled, one corner of his mouth crooked by a small scar where something had once cut the skin deeply. Brin wondered how someone came by a scar like that, and his eyes strayed briefly to the chain the man wore wrapped around his waist like a belt.
The man gave Brin a look that Brin was accustomed to getting from adults, down his broken nose, as if the man knew very well that Brin was lying. He nodded at the flute Brin wore tucked into his own belt. It was the only thing Brin had taken that he didn’t strictly need. It had been his father’s.
Brin’s hand tapped the holes of the flute.
“You seemed nervous,” the man said. “Do you play?”
“Oh,” Brin said. He set his hand back down on the cart bed. “Yes.”
“But you’re not a musician?”
“What makes you say that?”
The man shrugged. “You haven’t played it once since you joined us in Waterdeep. In my experience, someone who depends on their skills to eat doesn’t give them a chance to get rusty.” He smiled again. “You’ll have to forgive me. There’s not much to do on this stretch of the road but observe each other. I’m called Tam.”
“Brin.” Whatever other attributes Constancia and the rest of their family had tried to impress onto Brin, they had succeeded in making him curious about other people and observant enough of the minor details that hinted at a whole. His eyes dropped to the silver pin on the man’s shoulder—a pair of eyes surrounded by seven stars. The symbol of Selûne. Another pin sat below it. But it was pinned from the inside of his cloak. Curious.
Tam followed his gaze. “Suppose the game’s a little duller if I wear my profession on my sleeve, hm?”
“Suppose so,” Brin said. “Do you like being a priest?”
Tam studied Brin for a moment, as if he were trying to divine whether Brin was making conversation or if he was really curious. Brin made himself stay quiet—let him guess.
“It’s a calling,” Tam said finally, “and it suits me. Mostly.”
Which, as far as callings went, sounded like a decent set of cards to be dealt in Brin’s opinion. Maybe the Moonmaiden was a more generous mistress than most.
“What doesn’t suit you?”
Tam leaned forward. “Traveling,” he said in conspiratorial tones.
Brin smiled because he was supposed to—the pin might be the mark of a Selûni
te, but the spiked chain that looked older than Brin had nothing to do with the Moonmaiden and neither did the canny look in Tam’s eye. At least I’m not the only liar in this wagon, he thought. He wondered if the priest realized his little game of observation went both ways.
“Aren’t you a little young to have fled Neverwinter?” Tam asked.
“Not me,” Brin said. “My parents.” The parents had been part of the story since the beginning—they were his ticket to Neverwinter.
“Ah,” Tam said. “Of course. Where did they head?”
“Darromar,” Brin said, the same city he’d told the wagon driver. Before, it had been Westgate and before that Yhaunn. Later, he thought, he might say Waterdeep—a city big enough that even if he met a Waterdhavian, they wouldn’t bat an eye if they didn’t know the same people or the same areas.
Lying out in the world was easier than lying at home—for one, nobody here assumed Brin was lying when he opened his mouth, and nobody criticized his lies once he told them. The tricky part was keeping his story straight when he had to keep changing things.
“Oh?” Tam said. “I lived in Athkatla for some years.”
Brin nodded, racking his brain. Athkatla … was the capital of Amn—south. Not so far south as Darromar, and while Athkatla was closer—probably—to Darromar than they were now, they were far enough apart that Brin would have no cause to have visited the larger town … except—
“Was the road north always that bad?” he said. “It felt like we’d never make it to Waterdeep.”
Tam shrugged. “It was a long time ago. I left on the road east.”
Brin shrugged and looked back at the road again, a bad feeling creeping through his thoughts. If Tam didn’t mention Athkatla because of the road, then why? Was he just looking for something they had vaguely in common? Or was he trying to catch Brin in a lie? He looked at the odd priest out of the corner of his eye.
He’d felt sure that no one who knew he’d left would be willing to send out hunters or postings. He’d assumed they would just send Constancia and her warrior-priests …
He’s not a bounty hunter, Brin told himself. And if he were, he couldn’t be sure Brin was who he was looking for: There were no portraits to show a hunter, and besides, Brin had stained his blond hair regularly since leaving Cormyr. A hunter would be told he was seventeen, but Brin had been relying on his short height and scrawny build to pass for younger—the wagon master thought he was fourteen, which would have mortified Brin a few months ago but now felt like a special triumph. And the hunter would be looking for someone to answer to another name.
Brimstone Angels Page 3
